BETHLEHEM, West Bank ? Preparations for a long-needed renovation of the 1,500-year-old Church of the Nativity are moving ahead in Bethlehem, the town of Jesus' birth, in the face of political and religious conflicts that have kept one of Christendom's holiest sites in a state of decay for centuries.
The first and most urgent part of the renovation, initiated by the Palestinian government in the West Bank, is meant to replace the building's roof. Ancient wooden beams pose a danger to visitors, officials say, and leaks have already ruined many of the church's priceless mosaics and paintings.
If the repairs go ahead as planned next year, it will be the first time the crumbling basilica has seen major renovation work in more than a century and a half.
Altering a building like the Church of the Nativity, built 1,500 years ago on the site of a church 200 years older than that, is never a simple affair. The building is shared by three Christian sects ? Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Armenians ? who have traditionally viewed each other with suspicion and are wary of upsetting the brittle status quo that governs the site.
To repair a part of the church is to own it, according to accepted practice, meaning that letting other sects undertake renovations or pay for them could allow one to gain ground at another's expense.
The resulting paralysis and disrepair has been a recurring theme at the church.
"In the roof the timbers which were constructed in ancient times are rotting, and this structure is falling daily into ruin," wrote one visitor. That was in 1461.
Some measure of the complications involved in a renovation of this type can be found in the Nativity's similarly ancient and fractious sister church, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. When a 1927 earthquake badly damaged that building, it took the rival sects more than three decades to agree to major repairs and another three to complete them.
Today, the increasingly dire state of the Nativity's roof and the intervention of an external player in the form of the Palestinian Authority ? which has circumvented the old rivalries and allowed all to save face ? has led the three churches to agree to a renovation to be arranged and funded by the Palestinian government and international donors.
The Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government that wields limited control in the West Bank under Israel's overall control, sees the church as its premier tourist attraction, with 2 million foreign visitors last year.
The PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are eager to win recognition for the basilica from UNESCO as a world heritage site, but an earlier application was not accepted because UNESCO did not consider the Palestinian government a state. That changed last month, when, in a controversial decision that triggered a funding cutoff by the United States, the U.N.'s cultural arm decided to grant recognition.
The Palestinians are now hoping their application will be approved. The renovation is motivated, in part, by a desire on their part to prove they are responsible stewards of sites of global importance.
"Our president has issued a decree to restore the roof and to prepare for the restoration of the church on behalf of the three churches and in coordination with the three churches, which obviously cannot do it on their own," said Khouloud Daibes, the Palestinian tourism minister.
A high-tech survey by experts from Canada, Italy and elsewhere ended earlier this year. Palestinian officials hope the three churches will sign off on the plans and that the renovation itself will begin in 2012. It is expected to cost between $10 and $15 million.
The roof is in such poor condition that there is a "risk of collapsing beams within the wooden structure which could hurt people inside the church," said Issam Juha of the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, one of the official Palestinian bodies in charge of the UNESCO application.
"We recognize that this is a necessity that goes beyond our different claims, and that this has to be done," said Father Athanasius, the Roman Catholic clergyman in charge of relations with other sects at shared sites in the Holy Land.
Archbishop Aris Shirvanian of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem said his church supported the plan, along with the other churches. A Greek Orthodox representative did not respond to requests for comment.
To someone standing on the worn marble floors of the basilica amid cassocked monks and busloads of tourists and looking upward, the roof appears as an aging latticework of wooden beams, some of them visibly warped.
The roof was first built, along with the rest of the basilica, by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 6th century A.D. following the destruction of the original church built on the site of the grotto where Jesus was believed to have been born. Some of Justinian's massive wooden beams are still in use.
In 1480, with Bethlehem under Muslim rule and the roof disintegrating, permission was granted to replace it. Philip, Duke of Burgundy, sent craftsmen, wood and iron. King Edward IV of England sent lead, and the Doge of Venice provided ships. Major work was carried out again two centuries later.
When the British controlled the Holy Land between 1917 and 1948, they recognized the urgency of replacing the roof but simply could not navigate the explosive rivalries between the sects in the church, traditionally backed by powers like France and Russia.
In the mid-1800s the tensions had become so fierce that Russian Czar Nicholas I actually deployed troops along the Danube to threaten a Turkish sultan who had been favoring the Catholics over the Orthodox.
The British managed only small repairs. The same went for the Jordanians, who ruled Bethlehem from 1948 to 1967, and for the Israelis, who captured the West Bank from the Jordanians and turned the city over to the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s.
A UNESCO report in 1997 found that because of water leaking from the roof, most of the mosaics and paintings, some dating from Byzantine times, had been "damaged beyond repair."
In the similar case of the renovation of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the sects put aside their differences only when they realized that their holy building was in danger of collapse, said Raymond Cohen of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an international relations professor who wrote a book about that renovation project. There was also a measure of judicious outside intervention by a Jordanian official at the right time, he said.
Something similar appears to have happened here.
"The paradox is that everyone needs to repair it, but they can't agree," Cohen said. "When the place is about to fall down, it focusses the mind."
___
Follow Matti Friedman at http://www.twitter.com/MattiFriedman
FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011 file photo, an Egyptian trader reads a copy of the Al-Masry Al-Youm local newspaper fronted by pictures of clashes between protesters and security forces, at the Egyptian stock exchange in Cairo, Egypt. More than nine-months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the country is reaching an economic crisis point as the stock market posts daily plunges, foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent and a ratings agency pushed Egypt's sovereign ratings deeper into junk status.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011 file photo, an Egyptian trader reads a copy of the Al-Masry Al-Youm local newspaper fronted by pictures of clashes between protesters and security forces, at the Egyptian stock exchange in Cairo, Egypt. More than nine-months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the country is reaching an economic crisis point as the stock market posts daily plunges, foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent and a ratings agency pushed Egypt's sovereign ratings deeper into junk status.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011 file photo, an Egyptian takes a nap under a digital screen displaying the percentage fall in the index at the Egyptian stock exchange in Cairo, Egypt. More than nine-months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the country is reaching an economic crisis point as the stock market posts daily plunges, foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent and a ratings agency pushed Egypt's sovereign ratings deeper into junk status.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, tourists and holiday makers enjoy camel rides at the historical site of Giza Pyramids, Giza Egypt. More than nine-months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the country is reaching an economic crisis point as the stock market posts daily plunges, foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent and a ratings agency pushed Egypt's sovereign ratings deeper into junk status.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, Egyptian school students line up as they visit the historical site of Giza Pyramids, Giza, Egypt. More than nine-months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, the country is reaching an economic crisis point as the stock market posts daily plunges, foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent and a ratings agency pushed Egypt's sovereign ratings deeper into junk status. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
CAIRO (AP) ? Drivers passing Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo curse the protesters.
On radio shows, callers question whether the youth activists and others involved in the new wave of demonstrations over the past week are nationalists, selfish children or saboteurs.
Political differences aside, what has become clear is that the latest clamor against Egypt's military rulers is pummeling the country's already flailing economy at a crucial time when many hoped winter tourism would pick up. A financial crisis is looming, say analysts.
"We're not far off," said Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist with Capital Economics. "There's enough money left in the coffers to get through the year, but not much beyond that. Crunch time is two to three months away."
It took 30 years to engineer the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in February. But it only took months to push the 7 percent annual growth rate of recent years to an anemic forecast of only about 1 percent this year.
The difficulties keep mounting. The stock market tanks daily and foreign reserves have fallen by almost 40 percent so far this year.
The drop is linked to the protests that have persisted since Mubarak's fall, and more specifically, the wide gap between the expectations of the population after the uprising and the reality of what the government could deliver.
From iconic Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution, to the city's middle income neighborhoods and slums, the sobering realization that the hopes for democracy have not translated into a better standard of living is leaving Egyptians increasingly frustrated ? with the military rulers, with the interim government that resigned a few days ago and, perhaps more troublingly, with each other.
"The move toward democracy is something that should be a beacon for the rest of the region," said Shearing. "But we've clearly reached a point ... where there needs to be some political stability because the financing risks are severe."
As of October, the country's net foreign reserves had fallen to $22 billion from $36 billion at the end of 2010. At least part of that money has gone to supporting the Egyptian pound, which economists worry could face severe depreciation if officials don't shore up the country's finances.
At the famed pyramids of Giza, when horse rides, papyrus prints and tours failed to entice some tourists, a young guide turned to the unorthodox.
"Girls?" offered 23-year-old Samir Adham, flashing a sly grin. "Hashish?"
He apologized when he realized the offer was made to a reporter.
"No one comes any more," he explained. "What can I do? I have to make a living," he said, bemoaning the hammering of Egypt's vital tourism industry, one of the country's top money-earners, since the revolution.
The troubles confronting Adham and others in the tourism sector are a window into the country's broader challenges.
Egypt's tourism sector has accounted for roughly 10 percent of gross domestic product and employs Egyptians in a range of supporting industries ? from guides and camel touts to hotel workers and artisans.
"Most shops have either let go of most of their employees or cut their salaries by at least 50 percent," said Khaled Osman, who owns a shop near the pyramids employing about 20 people. Since the revolution, the unemployment rate has climbed to almost 12 percent in the third quarter of 2011, compared to just shy of 9 percent a year earlier.
If the uprising that pushed Mubarak from power marked the start of the industry's demise for the year, then the latest protests in Tahrir Square have further cemented the losses.
The most recent clashes began as protesters returned to the square calling for the military to hand over power immediately to a civilian government. Among their complaints was that the ruling generals were no different than Mubarak and that they had run the economy into the ground.
The images of activists and security forces hurling rocks at each other through a thick fog of tear gas is hardly encouraging tourists. The unrest hasn't sat well with investors either. The cost of government borrowing has gone up and the central bank on Friday was forced to raise interest rates for the first time in roughly three years.
Borrowing costs will likely climb even more after ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Thursday drove Egypt's sovereign debt rating deeper into junk status, citing what it said was "an ongoing high, and recently increased, risk of challenges to political institutions that will possibly involve further domestic conflict."
"These challenges could arise if populist demands for greater political participation are thwarted, or from demands for improved living standards from different sectors of the population no matter who is governing Egypt," the agency said.
The impact of the uncertainty is clear at Cairo's airport, where officials report that passenger traffic has fallen off sharply since the start of the latest clashes a week ago. Some flights arrive with fewer than 30 passengers.
In Luxor, home to some of the country's most prized archaeological sites, tourism officials said hotel occupancy rates have plunged to under 10 percent. The downturn there is especially troubling because the winter months are typically when tourists head to southern Egypt, and Luxor and Aswan rely overwhelmingly on tourism revenues.
The declines are mirrored in Cairo, where five-star hotels sit largely empty.
Only Red Sea resorts such as Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheik are still going strong, with occupancy rates of about 70 percent, according to Amani El-Torgoman, tourism operations manager at Travco, one of the region's largest travel companies. But even there, it has come at a price.
"We're running after clients with best offers and last minute offers," said El-Torgoman, noting that most properties had cut their rates by as much as 50 percent to lure in visitors with all-inclusive packages that can go for as little as $50 per night.
While the latest clashes in Cairo have yet to be reflected in tourism figures, officials expect the hit to be hard and to build on top of an already declining interest on the part of Europeans, the bulk of visitors.
Irina Tyurina, a spokesperson for the Russian Association of Tourist Agencies, said the sales had dropped by 57 percent over the past six months compared to the same period of last year.
The so-called "Classic tours," which involve trips through Cairo and then down to southern Egypt, are all but dead, said Travco's El-Torgoman.
"If things continue like this, there are a lot of people who will go out of business," she said. "A lot (of smaller companies and shops) can't afford paying the salaries or even sustaining small losses."
The same argument carries across other sectors of the economy and into the daily lives of Egyptians who complain that the only thing that has come from the ouster of Mubarak has been even more of an increase in prices, coupled with a surge in crime and the headaches that come with the daily protests in Cairo. Already nearly half the population of more than 80 million lives near or below the poverty line set by the World Bank of $2 a day.
"Why can't they see that they're destroying the country," railed Mohammed El-Sharkawy, an accountant who moonlights as an electrician to make ends meet. The activists say "they want democracy and freedom, but don't understand that it comes with responsibility."
> ____
> Associated Press correspondents Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Alexander Besant in Cairo contributed.
Criticism of Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is coming from all corners, including a college teammate of Suh?s who says it?s time for a suspension.
Jets guard Matt Slauson, who played with Suh at Nebraska, told Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post that the NFL should suspend Suh because fines haven?t curtailed his on-field misbehavior and, Slauson says, ?he?s out of control.?
?Somebody needs to get him under control, because he?s trying to hurt people,? Slauson said. ?It?s one thing to be an incredibly physical player and a tenacious player, but it?s another thing to set out to end that guy?s career.?
Suh and Slauson lined up against each other in practice, and Nebraska practices frequently featured problems related to Suh?s temper getting the best of him, Slauson told Hubbuch.
Although Suh was one of the best defensive tackles in college football history ? being named Associated Press College Football Player of the Year and winning the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award, Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy in addition to being a finalist for the Heisman Trophy ? Slauson says his teammates didn?t like him. And he says people at Nebraska like Suh even less now that he?s making the football program look bad with his tactics in the NFL, including stepping on an opponent on Thanksgiving, resulting in an ejection.
This isn?t the first time Slauson has indicated he didn?t particularly enjoy being Suh?s teammate. Asked about the then-rookie for the Lions a year ago, Slauson said, ?I wouldn?t say me and Suh were best friends. There were times we got in fights during spring ball, during camp. Emotions go, you get tired and Suh just happened to be the guy I was going against.?
It seems that pretty much everyone is fed up with Suh right now. The next question is whether Roger Goodell is so fed up that Suh is suspended.
It's been a long struggle for Lily Allen, but the British singer announced the exciting news today: she's a new mother!
The singer - who suffered a miscarriage in both 2008 and 2010 - and husband Sam Cooper welcomed a son today, as Allen expressed her feelings on the matter in via a simple Tweet: “Totes Amaze."
Cooper proposed to Allen on Christmas Day 2010. They got married in June and we couldn't be happier for the new family!
LA-CHAUX-DE-FONDS, Switzerland ? Michel Frene vividly recalls his childhood on a farm in Courtelary, a village in the foothills of Switzerland's Jura mountains. There were cows, lush fields, even a nearby chocolate factory.
Most of all, he remembers the 220-pound (100-kilo) bags of wheat he hauled on his back, the Red Cross donated clothes, the animal dung that clung to his body from spraying fertilizer with a leaking hose.
"I was just wearing thin overalls, I had no socks, no briefs and I was wet and cold," he recalls. "I was dripping with manure, it was horrible."
Frene was one of hundreds of thousands of Swiss children taken from their parents and sent to work on farms from the early 1800s until the 1960s, a period in which Switzerland was transformed from a rural backwater into a wealthy and modern society. Many of the so-called Verdingkinder ? or "contract children" ? experienced emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of those who were meant to care for them.
Now pressure is mounting on the government to grant compensation and an official apology to the dwindling number of surviving victims. Authorities are planning an event next year to commemorate their suffering, a first possible step toward healing.
"They stole our childhood," Frene, a 68-year-old retired watchmaker, told The Associated Press in an interview at his home in the western Swiss town of La-Chaux-de-Fonds.
Officially, children were only taken away from parents who were too poor to properly care for them. In practice, historians say, authorities also targeted the children of single mothers and others whom they considered to have fallen into "moral destitution."
"If a family didn't meet society's expectations then they quickly ran the risk that their children would be taken away," said Ruedi Weidmann, a Zurich historian. "Unmarried, divorced or widowed mothers could rarely keep their children."
In Frene's case, both parents were alive but considered unsuited to raise him and his five siblings. The mother wanted little to do with her children, and the father's long hours as a porter meant they were neglected at home.
Foster families, and in some cases orphanages, were meant to provide the children with food and schooling in return for a small sum from the authorities. But in rural Switzerland, where machines didn't displace manual work until well into the 20th century, the children were just seen as cheap labor. Some authorities would hold public auctions where the bidder who asked the lowest fee for taking the children would win.
Boys worked in the field, while girls were made to cook and clean. Many recount being clothed in rags and living off scraps the family wouldn't eat. Forced to work the fields, few children were able to complete an education, leaving them unable to pursue anything but menial jobs in later life.
"We were always on the farm. We didn't do much at school. There was always work to be done, even in the winter," said Frene. He didn't learn to write until he got married and his wife taught him.
Surviving contract children including Frene also recount beatings and sexual abuse. Those who tried to flee were threatened with institutions ? little more than prisons ? and suicide rates were high, according to historians. A recent feature film "Der Verdingbub" ? The Contract Boy ? portraying the abuse suffered by one youngster at the hands of a farming community has sparked outrage in Switzerland.
"The film doesn't show the worst of it, but the victims say it's very realistic," said its director, Markus Imboden. "There are many damaged people who are still suffering the effects of what was done to them."
Authorities at the time regarded the children as an economic problem, not individuals in need of protection, said Jacqueline Fehr, a lawmaker with the Social Democratic Party who has campaigned on behalf of victims.
"It wasn't just individual farmers or authorities who failed," she said. "It was an attitude of the whole Swiss society that needs to be re-examined."
The Swiss Justice Ministry acknowledged to the AP that the number of living victims may be as high as 30,000. Plans are being drawn up for an event early next year to recognize the history of the contract children, said Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli.
"The main purpose is to provide moral redress for these persons, not financial compensation," he said in an emailed statement, without providing details.
But many say official recognition isn't enough.
Historians calculate that each surviving contract child could be owed an average of 120,000 Swiss francs ($130,000) for unpaid labor alone. Based on Justice Ministry estimates of the number of living victims, that could amount to a bill of up to 3.6 billion franc ($3.9 billion).
But while Switzerland has previously apologized to victims of forced sterilization and to Jews who couldn't access Holocaust-era bank accounts, financial compensation in those tragedies has been slow in coming.
Former contract children say stigma followed them even after they left the farm.
Thomas Shaw Cooper was born in Quincy, Illinois, in 1925. After his father disappeared when Cooper was a few months old his Swiss mother returned with him to her homeland. When his maternal grandfather died, Cooper was sent to a farm in the mountains outside Bern.
Cooper says he was never beaten and didn't go hungry, although he was forced to work seven days a week looking after animals, clearing the stalls and cutting peat.
"My problems only started when I left," he said at his modest row house in the town of Biel.
"As soon as you say you're a contract boy the question always comes, what did you do. They were convinced that you'd committed a crime," said Cooper. People imagined that contract children had come from 'bad families,' and must therefore be corrupt themselves. "People looked at you like you were a little gangster."
It never occurred to him to challenge the officials who denied him permission to learn a trade. Once a stable boy, always a stable boy, one official, Cooper's legal guardian until he turned 20, told him.
Cooper worked several low-paid jobs all his life, despite showing a talent for engineering that he still pursues today, aged 86. Had he been properly paid for his work on the farm, or allowed to pursue a professional career, life might have been easier, he said.
The film, and a traveling exhibition based on stories such as those of Frene and Cooper, have stirred public debate in Switzerland, adding to pressure for an official apology and a proper examination of the history of the contract children.
"In Switzerland we know exactly how many cows there are at any one time, because they are all tagged. But to this day nobody knows for sure how many children were sent away from their families," said Alexander Leumann, as he guided a group around the exhibition.
Former contract children like Frene say official Swiss recognition of their suffering would be a start.
"I wouldn't say no to damages but what's more important to me is the apology," he said. "What's missing is that the authorities acknowledge they made a mistake."
___
Exhibition about Switzerland's "contract children" in Zurich, through April 1, 2012: http://www.verdingkinderreden.ch/
Mitt Romney brings us today's biggest political non-scandal by admitting to People Magazine that he once tasted beer and tried a cigarette.?In excerpts from an interview from the magazine's upcoming issue, the interviewer asks Romney if he's tried beer. He responds:
Never had drinks or tobacco. It?s a religious thing. I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once, as a wayward teenager, and never did it again.
Romney rather famously abstains from drinking?because?of his Mormon faith, and this revelation doesn't do a whole lot to damage his reputation as comically straight-laced. ABC News's Michael Falcone is also tweeting other fun facts from the interview, most notably that Romney likes listening to the Killers and plays Angry Birds on his iPad, which he uses while on the treadmill. (Is that a sly attempt to highlight his skill at multi-tasking? If so, we're impressed. It's not easy to walk and fling explosive birds at the same time.)?
Phase I trial begins using gene therapy and bone marrow stem cells in the treatment of brain cancerPublic release date: 14-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alicia Reale alicia.reale@uhhospitals.org 216-844-5156 University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Initiated by Lentigen and UH Case Medical Center
Cleveland, OH. and Gaithersburg, MD. University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Lentigen Corporation announced today the initiation of a novel Phase I clinical trial of LG631 gene therapy for the protection of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from the dose limiting toxicity of chemotherapy with Temodar.
Approximately 17,000 Americans are diagnosed with glioblastoma every year and only two percent of them survive longer than five years even with aggressive treatment. Glioblastoma (GBM) treatment generally begins with a surgical resection, followed by radiation therapy and then chemotherapy to destroy any remaining cancer cells. Temodar (temozolomide, Merck and Co., Inc.) is a standard treatment of glioblastoma, but dose-limiting bone marrow toxicity often accompanies such therapy.
In this first-of-its-kind study, researchers are investigating if LG631 can potentially improve tolerance and effectiveness of chemotherapy for GBM by preventing damage to bone marrow. The study will evaluate the safety of this treatment and its potential to enhance current GBM treatments.
For this study, HSCs will be isolated from participating patients, transduced with LG631, an altered human-Methylguanine Methyltransferase (MGMT) gene to make them resistant to Temodar, and then infused back into the patient. The MGMT gene has been shown to repair damaged DNA. The specially designed Lentiviral vector (LG631) will be used to deliver the gene specifically to bone marrow stem cells that are susceptible to damage by drugs commonly used to treat cancer, thereby enabling patients to receive higher doses of Temodar with less severe side effects.
"Glioblastoma is a devastating disease and many patients do not benefit from standard therapy," notes Dr. Andrew Sloan, Director of the Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center, UH Case Medical Center and Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and Pathology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who is leading the clinical trial. "This trial has the potential to change the way we treat GBMparticularly in patients whose bone marrow is sensitive or those whose tumors are likely to be resistant to standard therapies."
The LG631 vector was designed by Lentigen Corporation, a biotechnology company specializing in the development and manufacture of Lentiviral gene delivery technologies, and has been evaluated in animal models in collaboration with Stanton Gerson, MD, Director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University and Seidman Cancer Center at UH Case Medical Center. The application of the mutated MGMT gene for use in stem cell protection was discovered in Dr. Gerson's laboratory.
"The combination of the vector technology with the stem cell gene therapy approach is highly innovative," says Dr. Gerson. "This is the first time the combination will be used in cancer patients right after surgery. We are excited about this promising approach to enhance current treatments for glioblastoma."
"The initiation of this NCI-supported study represents an important milestone in the development of Lentigen's pipeline," said Tim Ravenscroft, CEO of Lentigen Corporation. "It is the first of several products which we expect to enter the clinic in the next 12 months. For patients with glioblastoma treated with Temodar, it is our hope that LG631 gene therapy of bone marrow stem cells can substantially improve patient outcomes in this devastating disease."
The project described was supported by Grant Number R42CA128269 from the National Cancer Institute and a grant to the Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine (CSCRM) from Ohio's Third Frontier Commission under its Research Commercialization Program. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health.
###
About Lentigen Corporation
Lentigen Corporation is a privately owned biotechnology company focused on the development of lentiviral vector technology for a wide range of therapeutic, vaccine, and bioproduction applications. Lentiviral vectors are the most efficient vehicles for the delivery of genes or gene silencing sequences stably into cells. Lentigen is a highly collaborative company, co-developing Lentiviral vector-based products across a broad spectrum of bench to clinical applications. Collaborations include The National Institutes of Health, PATH, IAVI, Harvard Medical School, Expression Therapeutics, The University of Pennsylvania, The Johns Hopkins University, Case Western Reserve University, Loyola University Chicago, The University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Minnesota. Lentigen is primarily funded by GBP Capital (Greenwich, CT). For further information, visit www.lentigen.com.
About University Hospitals Case Medical Center
University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the school of medicine.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report "Guide to Graduate Education."
The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Phase I trial begins using gene therapy and bone marrow stem cells in the treatment of brain cancerPublic release date: 14-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alicia Reale alicia.reale@uhhospitals.org 216-844-5156 University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Initiated by Lentigen and UH Case Medical Center
Cleveland, OH. and Gaithersburg, MD. University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Lentigen Corporation announced today the initiation of a novel Phase I clinical trial of LG631 gene therapy for the protection of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from the dose limiting toxicity of chemotherapy with Temodar.
Approximately 17,000 Americans are diagnosed with glioblastoma every year and only two percent of them survive longer than five years even with aggressive treatment. Glioblastoma (GBM) treatment generally begins with a surgical resection, followed by radiation therapy and then chemotherapy to destroy any remaining cancer cells. Temodar (temozolomide, Merck and Co., Inc.) is a standard treatment of glioblastoma, but dose-limiting bone marrow toxicity often accompanies such therapy.
In this first-of-its-kind study, researchers are investigating if LG631 can potentially improve tolerance and effectiveness of chemotherapy for GBM by preventing damage to bone marrow. The study will evaluate the safety of this treatment and its potential to enhance current GBM treatments.
For this study, HSCs will be isolated from participating patients, transduced with LG631, an altered human-Methylguanine Methyltransferase (MGMT) gene to make them resistant to Temodar, and then infused back into the patient. The MGMT gene has been shown to repair damaged DNA. The specially designed Lentiviral vector (LG631) will be used to deliver the gene specifically to bone marrow stem cells that are susceptible to damage by drugs commonly used to treat cancer, thereby enabling patients to receive higher doses of Temodar with less severe side effects.
"Glioblastoma is a devastating disease and many patients do not benefit from standard therapy," notes Dr. Andrew Sloan, Director of the Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center, UH Case Medical Center and Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and Pathology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who is leading the clinical trial. "This trial has the potential to change the way we treat GBMparticularly in patients whose bone marrow is sensitive or those whose tumors are likely to be resistant to standard therapies."
The LG631 vector was designed by Lentigen Corporation, a biotechnology company specializing in the development and manufacture of Lentiviral gene delivery technologies, and has been evaluated in animal models in collaboration with Stanton Gerson, MD, Director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University and Seidman Cancer Center at UH Case Medical Center. The application of the mutated MGMT gene for use in stem cell protection was discovered in Dr. Gerson's laboratory.
"The combination of the vector technology with the stem cell gene therapy approach is highly innovative," says Dr. Gerson. "This is the first time the combination will be used in cancer patients right after surgery. We are excited about this promising approach to enhance current treatments for glioblastoma."
"The initiation of this NCI-supported study represents an important milestone in the development of Lentigen's pipeline," said Tim Ravenscroft, CEO of Lentigen Corporation. "It is the first of several products which we expect to enter the clinic in the next 12 months. For patients with glioblastoma treated with Temodar, it is our hope that LG631 gene therapy of bone marrow stem cells can substantially improve patient outcomes in this devastating disease."
The project described was supported by Grant Number R42CA128269 from the National Cancer Institute and a grant to the Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine (CSCRM) from Ohio's Third Frontier Commission under its Research Commercialization Program. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health.
###
About Lentigen Corporation
Lentigen Corporation is a privately owned biotechnology company focused on the development of lentiviral vector technology for a wide range of therapeutic, vaccine, and bioproduction applications. Lentiviral vectors are the most efficient vehicles for the delivery of genes or gene silencing sequences stably into cells. Lentigen is a highly collaborative company, co-developing Lentiviral vector-based products across a broad spectrum of bench to clinical applications. Collaborations include The National Institutes of Health, PATH, IAVI, Harvard Medical School, Expression Therapeutics, The University of Pennsylvania, The Johns Hopkins University, Case Western Reserve University, Loyola University Chicago, The University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Minnesota. Lentigen is primarily funded by GBP Capital (Greenwich, CT). For further information, visit www.lentigen.com.
About University Hospitals Case Medical Center
University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the school of medicine.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report "Guide to Graduate Education."
The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK ? The Kindle was always an odd product name. Amazon used a verb to name a thing, raising the question: Kindle what? Now we have the answer: Kindle Fire.
The Kindle Fire is the first full-color, touch-screen Kindle. It's available in the U.S. starting Monday for $199.
A price like that for what's essentially a small iPad is bound to light the flames of desire this holiday season. I want to cool those down a bit, or some of you will buy the Fire and feel burned.
The Fire is the best Kindle yet, no doubt about it. It's amazing that it costs half of what the first Kindle cost, just four years ago, yet does so much more than display books.
It's more of an all-purpose computer than an e-reader. It shows movies, TV shows and Web pages. It does email and lets you play games. You'll be lucky to get any reading done, with so many other things to do.
But it has to be weighed against the competition. When you do that, it becomes apparent just how spare Amazon had to keep the device to limbo under that $200 price level.
The Kindle's design is even starker than the iPad's. It's a black monolith with only one button ? the power switch ? and two jacks, for headphones and power. All the controls are on the screen.
The screen measures 7 inches diagonally. It's much smaller than the iPad by surface area, making the Fire more portable. It will fit nicely into a handbag, for instance.
The size of the screen wasn't much of an issue on the monochrome Kindles because they were mainly good for showing text anyway. But the responsive color screen of the Fire opens up a lot of possibilities, such as showing magazine and comic-book pages.
Here, the small size of the screen gets in the way. It's just too far from standard page sizes to do them justice. Magazine pages look tiny. Amazon has to jump through some hoops to make them readable, like including a mode that shows just the text. But flicking through a magazine is still a lot of work ? and that's one thing that should not be like work.
Barnes & Noble's Nook Color, launched last year, has the same problem ? a nice color screen that's too small. The iPad gets it right, for a few hundred dollars more.
While we're on the subject of "too small," let's talk about the Fire's memory. It has 8 gigabytes of storage. That's enough for more books than you'll ever read, but 10 movies will eat up the whole thing.
The cheapest iPad, which costs $499, has twice as much memory. The Nook Color, which costs $199, also has 8 gigabytes, but it comes with a slot for memory expansion with cheap cards. I don't understand why the Fire doesn't have a slot like that. The very first Kindle did. There's no step-up model of the Fire with more memory.
Amazon says the Fire doesn't need more memory because the company provides an online storage locker, where you can stuff all your music and other content. That works when you have Wi-Fi coverage, but not otherwise ? the Fire doesn't have the ability to use cellular networks, as some of the monochrome models do.
The Fire also lacks a camera and a microphone. Those aren't things you'd expect in an e-reader (the Nook also lacks them). But they are standard features on tablets and are quite useful, particularly for videoconferencing. Their absence is forgivable at $199.
The color screen means, inevitably, that battery life suffers compared with e-readers that use power-sipping monochrome screens. Amazon puts the reading time at eight hours, compared with about 30 hours for the new $99 Kindle Touch, which has a monochrome, touch-sensitive screen and is designed just for reading.
The Fire's software is based on Google Inc.'s Android software, used in smartphones and a bevy of tablets that compete with the iPad. None has really caught on, except to some extent the Nook Color. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says this is because the other tablets lack an ecosystem of the kind Apple provides in iTunes: an integrated market for books, movies, music and applications.
Amazon has done a good job of setting up its own store. Buying and downloading books and movies is a quick process ? as long as you're buying them from Amazon.
People complain about how Apple dictates the terms of access to the iPhone and iPad, but Amazon's Kindles have always been more restrictive, and the Fire is only a slight departure from that strategy.
You can't buy copy-protected books from anyone but Amazon and expect to read them on the Fire, as you can on the iPad. Even the Nooks allow third-party books. Amazon achieves this control by operating its own app store, separate from the Android Market run by Google. Clever people will figure out a way to bypass this and install any app they want, but most people won't want to bother.
To Amazon's credit, it's allowing the excellent Comixology comics app onto the Fire. That means you don't have to buy your comics from Amazon, and you aren't restricted to the Fire's built-in (and inferior) comics browser. It's also letting the apps for the Netflix and Hulu streaming services onto the device, in competition with Amazon's own streaming service.
So the Fire does justice to fiction and movies, but the iPad does better in almost every way, particularly in the selection of apps, which is about 50 times greater than the Fire's.
If the step up to $499 is too much, you might want to consider the Nook Tablet, which comes out Friday. At $249, it will be the same size as the Fire, but with twice the memory, plus a memory expansion slot. It won't access all of Amazon's goodies and apps, but it will have Netflix and Hulu. Take a look at it before jumping to the Fire.
___
Peter Svensson can be reached at http://twitter.com/petersvensson
"Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." - Wendell Berry, Author and Activist
Berry's belief in nature's influence was powerfully validated on October 29, the day that Occupy Wall Street's Environmental Action Group scheduled its first Climate Justice Day. On that very day, Mother Nature hit New York with the first October blizzard in recorded history. The weather event was national news, and Occupy Wall Street's (OWS) Climate Justice Day got a lot more coverage than it would have otherwise. What journalist could resist the irony of a panel called "Nightmare on Wall St: Capitalism and the Roots of the Ecological Crisis" being canceled by a freakish snowfall, itself an example of ecological crisis?
This blizzard is not the only evidence that nature has joined forces with the Occupy movement. Even the movement's structure is a living system, a forthright rejection of the rigid hierarchies of Wall Street and the government. A living system cannot exist in isolation, is never in equilibrium and is constantly generating new forms. What better context from which to produce results that support the environment?
At first, public reaction to "greens" was generally negative. Many said that they were a fringe group co-opting the Occupy movement for publicity, or even worse, that environmentalists were diluting the message of income inequality.
Then, for a while, you didn't hear much about them. The Occupy movement's first official statement contains 23 planks, and only one addresses an environmental issue, "(Let the fact be known) that they continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil." There was nothing about climate change or saving the earth.
However, living systems demand energy and produce waste. Prodded by regulators who threatened to "clean" the Zuccotti Park and confiscate generators, a sustainability group emerged. The working group KSS -- Kitchen, Sustainability and Sanitation -- took on the job. Members process waste, using bicycles to carry compostable material to three local farms. Three stationary bicycles are attached to a car battery that replaces the generators the city was about to confiscate. The "energy of the people" system was designed by an MIT engineer.
Tabitha, a member of the Occupy Seattle Sustainability Brigade Working Group described the purpose of these sustainability groups. "We are a small experiment as to what our society could look like. ... There is lots of garbage produced here, it's a mess, but it reflects society."
Her group composts, uses grey water systems, water catchment and solar panels to generate clean power. The whole idea is to create a community organized around sustainability. This in turn provides experiential learning to create environmentalists out of all movement members.
Environmental Action Group (EAG) is a separate group working for the direct action component of environmentalism. Rather than try to build its own environmental action, EAG contacted the major environmental groups with the offer of support and partnership. Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental group 350.org, spoke at OWS on October 17 and invited the crowd to join him in Washington, D.C. to protest the Keystone tar sands pipeline. And many from both OWS and Occupy Seattle went.
Is Mother Nature occupying Wall Street? Certainly, OWS is finding it must accommodate her. Whether it's dealing with the necessities of life or co-opting her weird weather or accommodating members whose passion for the earth demands a hearing, nature insists on being a party to the group. Environmentalists are speaking out, defining how environmental destruction and economic inequality are closely connected. Nature doesn't insist on being the dominant issue, but she will certainly have her say.
CANBERRA, Australia ? Police arrested four Spaniards in one of Australia's largest cocaine seizures, authorities said Monday.
About 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of the illegal drug were seized from a yacht on Friday at the northeastern coastal town of Bundaberg, Australian Federal Police said in a statement. Police said the yacht was crewed by Ivan Maria Ramos Valea, 35, and Julia Maria Boada Fernandez, 37, who were both arrested.
They said two other Spanish citizens ? Miguel Angel Sanchez Barrocal, 38, and Jose Herrero-Calvo, 39 ? were also arrested in Bundaberg, where they were alleged to be collecting the cocaine.
Police said they also seized more than 3 million Australian dollars ($3.1 million) in cash using search warrants in Bundaberg, Gold Coast and Sydney.
The four Spanish nationals, whose hometowns in Spain were not released, appeared in a Bundaberg court Monday charged with importing cocaine. Each faces up to life imprisonment if convicted.
They were remanded in custody to appear in court next on Jan. 12, when they are to enter pleas. Police said the haul was the fifth-largest cocaine seizure in Australian history. The drug was valued at up to $80 million.
COMMENTARY | For over a week now the mainstream media has inundated the airwaves and print pages with unsubstantiated and anonymous claims of sexual harassment waged against GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain.
These same media outlets have virtually ignored the indiscretions of Barack Obama, such as his involvement with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, his ties to the greenhouse gas industry, or the accusation of one Larry Sinclair who claims to have performed oral sex on Obama in 1999 while the then Senator smoked crack cocaine and further asserts that Obama was involved in the murder of Donald Young, a gay choir director at the President's former church, Trinity United Church of Christ.
Sinclair alleges that Young was Obama's gay lover and was subsequently murdered to cover up this affair. Young's death was reported on Dec. 4, 2007.
ABC News quoted Obama's spiritual leader, Jeremiah Wright, saying of Young, "He was one of those success stories, the average person would look at and say he doesn't have a chance."
Of his own involvement with Sen. Obama, Sinclair stated that on Nov. 6, 1999, "Senator Obama produced a glass cylinder pipe and packet of crack cocaine from his pants pocket and Obama smoked the crack cocaine. I performed fellatio on Senator Obama in the limousine during the time Senator Obama was smoking crack cocaine..." [sic]
Sinclair advised that Obama came to his hotel room again the next day at which time the two ingested cocaine and Sinclair again performed oral sex on the Senator.
None of this has garnered more than a passing glance in the mainstream media, yet the Cain accusations show 186 results on a Yahoo search for news (not to be confused with Yahoo! News) on Nov. 10 from sources such as CNN, CBS and others.
What also seems to elude reporters is that a confidentiality agreement applies to the accused as well as the accuser, and that Cain likely cannot reveal certain aspects or may not even know what the agreement entails. Conservative radio host andconstitutional attorney Mark Levin made this point on his Nov. 1 radio show.
It has also been reported that one of the accusers, Sharon Bialek, was witnessed hugging Cain during a Tea Party Convention that took place Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. This is clearly odd behavior for a woman he supposedly harassed a decade ago.
Another prominent Democrat figure facing a sexual harassment accusation, and under-reported by the mainstream media, is Jesse Jackson who is accused of fondling himself provocatively while speaking to a gay employee, requesting oral sex from the employee. This is according to a complaint filed with the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
The employee, Tommy R. Bennett, filed suit, says the Chicago Tribune, against Jackson in Cook County Circuit Court in September.
ATHENS, Greece ? Greece's new interim Cabinet was sworn in Friday, with former European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos at its helm as prime minister and the key position of finance minister unchanged.
Papademos was appointed on Thursday to head the temporary coalition government, which includes ministers from Greece's two largest parties and a smaller right-wing party, after a two-week political crisis that endangered the country's continued bailout funding and raised questions about its position within the eurozone.
The new government of Papademos, who also spent time as Greece's central bank governor, must now implement the terms of Greece's latest debt deal ? a euro130 billion ($177 billion) agreement reached by the European Union on Oct. 27. It includes provisions for private bondholders to forgive 50 percent ? or some euro100 billion ? of their Greek debt holdings.
He must also secure the next euro8 billion installment of the country's initial euro110 billion eurozone and International Monetary Fund bailout, without which Greece will default in a matter of weeks. Once that is done and the country has implemented the new debt agreement, Papademos is to lead the country to early elections, tentatively scheduled for February.
The new government will face a confidence vote in Parliament in the coming days ? a vote it is almost certain to win as it enjoys the support of both major parties ? the socialists headed by George Papandreou, who led the country through the past two years of financial crisis, and the conservatives of Antonis Samaras.
Papademos' tenure is expected to last only for a few months, but he will face the challenge of steering the country through the implementation of austerity measures already passed, including the suspension of 30,000 civil servants on partial pay and a series of privatizations.
The new prime minister will also have to negotiate the details of the private bondholder writedown included in the latest European debt deal.
Angered by nearly two years of austerity, including cuts to salaries and pensions and repeated tax hikes that have led to a deep recession, Greeks have organized frequent strikes and demonstrations that often turn violent. Papademos' appointment may dampen the protests, at least at first, some analysts argue.
"I think he will get that kind of brief honeymoon," said Thanos Dokos, head of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. "People were desperate enough and now (may) give a new face, a new person, who's not a professional politician some leeway to try to do his job in the proper way. And, of course, at some point they will be expecting some results, which I'm afraid will not be forthcoming in the short term."
LONDON?? Madonna's manager Guy Oseary has said the singer was "very upset" that a demo of her new song "Give Me All Your Love" had leaked onto the Internet.
The song, which hit the web on Wednesday and has been listened to by fans around the world, is expected to be the debut track from Madonna's upcoming album, her first studio release since leaving Warner Bros to join Live Nation.
"Madonna told me this morning 'my true fans wouldn't do this'... whoever is responsible for this leak, we ask that you please stop!" Oseary wrote via Twitter.
Story: Kelly Osbourne sent to Miami hospital
More Entertainment stories
Exclusive look: Trump puts a price on the U.S.
"Everything has a price," says business mogul and reality TV personality Donald Trump. And that includes our country.
Kutcher rethinks Twitter after Penn State fallout
Pattinson just a 'prop' in 'Twilight' wedding
Colbert proves his ice cream bests Fallon's
Movie night on 'X Factor' with Adam Sandler
"I'm very happy with the positive reaction to the demo, but we are very upset with whoever leaked the song!!!!!!!!" he added.
Addressing questions tweeted by fans, Oseary said the new album should be finished "in the next month or so," and that it did not yet have a title.
Slideshow: Madonna (on this page)
He added that the 53 year-old star, whose hits include "Like a Virgin," "Vogue" and "Hung Up," had penned a "beautiful ballad" for her movie "W.E.."
The picture, Madonna's second feature film as director, follows the life of Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee whose relationship with King Edward VIII sparked a constitutional crisis in Britain and led to his abdication.
Story: 10 Unforgettable MTV Moments
The film, which had its world premiere at the Venice film festival, hits U.S. theatres in December and British cinemas in January.
Madonna's new record will be her first studio album since 2008's "Hard Candy," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States.
Story: Marilyn Monroe film dress fetches $504,000
In 2007, Madonna dropped her long-time music label Warner Bros and signed a deal with concert promoter Live Nation reported to be for 10 years and worth $120 million.
The deal, part of a recent trend in the struggling music industry, involved not only record sales, but also touring and merchandising.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Amazon revealed its app lineup for Kindle Fire Wednesday, and it's pretty exciting. Even though the tablet will be a vessel for Amazon's media, the company is promoting competitors such as Netflix, Rhapsody and Pandora, plus a slew of games, in a roster that shows how much Amazon is learning from Apple.
What's surprising at first glance is that many of the apps that will be available to Kindle Fire buyers sound like they would directly compete with Amazon's own offerings. Who would pay for Amazon Prime for streaming video if they already have a Netflix subscription? Why buy songs when you have Pandora? But that's what has made Apple so successful. With the exception of iBooks, which may one day be a success but currently is a bit stalled, Apple's own media sales aren't hurt by the fact that there's a ton of great media apps for iPad. In fact, choice between quality services just makes the platform all the more alluring. (The $199 price tag doesn't hurt either.)
Amazon is also playing Apple in the way it runs its Appstore for Android. Every app goes through a submission process before it can be released. The goal is to keep app quality high, even if it means keeping the quantity of apps down. Amazon is also interested in selling apps, rather than just giving away freebies. Most of Google's Android Market is free stuff, and that tends to make some?game developers and content publishers skittish. Amazon is a very attractive alternative for them.
That's why the launch lineup for Kindle Fire apps includes the most popular games from?Zynga, EA, Gameloft, PopCap and Rovio, as well as cookbooks and kid's storybooks.
The increased attention to money does have a downside: Some developers have expressed dismay at Amazon's financial agreements, particularly the Free App of the Day,?which nets them zero dollars.
Because of this, Amazon is not just an Apple wannabe, but an anti-Google. When Google launched its Honeycomb tablet platform, it had 15 or so native apps, and they're still hard to come by.?If anything Kindle Fire is an example of how Android has failed in the tablet space. Everybody wants to consume content, but Amazon, like Apple, knows you have to put it in front of users or they won't know how, or where, to get it.?
Amazon didn't put Kindle Fire on Android because it likes Android. Amazon did it because it was the most logical way to build a platform that can compete with the iPad ??and leave those other Android tablets in the dust.
More on Kindle Fire from msnbc.com:
Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.
VAN, Turkey (Reuters) ? Riot police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse protesters angry at the state's relief efforts after an earthquake, the second in eastern Turkey within three weeks, killed at least eight people in the city of Van.
The clash broke out as rescue teams searched for survivors after a 5.7 magnitude tremor on Wednesday night heaped misery on the predominantly Kurdish region, where more than 600 people perished following a major quake on Oct 23.
Many of the survivors of the earlier quake are still living in make-shift camps in the open air and temperatures are plummeting. The latest tremor cut power to the area.
Some 200 demonstrators chanted for the resignation of the provincial governor in a rally close to two city center hotels that collapsed during the latest quake.
Working through the night, searchers rescued 25 people from the ruins of the hotels, said a statement from Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Administration (AFAD).
Two of those brought out from the rubble, including a 16-month-old, were flown by air ambulance to a hospital in the capital Ankara.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, who visited the devastated Bayram Hotel with Turkey's foreign minister, said 25 buildings had collapsed in Van, of which 23 were empty. There were only people in the two hotels.
The owner of the flattened five-storey Bayram Hotel, Aslan Bayram, told broadcasters that building experts had given his 47-year-old property the all-clear after last month's quake.
At the time of the latest quake, some 15 guests were believed to be in the hotel and some were pulled out on Thursday morning.
"I am cold. Rescue me quickly," said a man aged around 55-60 years old.
When rescued from the Bayram Hotel 11 hours after the quake, he was strapped into a stretcher and carried away to a waiting ambulance.
Since last month's quake, thousands of families have been living in tents, with temperatures dropping to freezing with the onset of winter. But many survivors have complained bitterly over the distribution of tents.
Overwhelmed by the demand in the early days of the disaster, the authorities decided families would be given tents only after their homes were checked by officials to see if they were habitable.
Many people had been too frightened to return to homes with cracked walls and ceilings, as multiple aftershocks rattled the region for days afterwards.
The latest quake struck 16 km (9 miles)south of Van at 1923 GMT on Wednesday, while the epicentre of the October 23 quake was just northeast of Van.
A tremor of 5.7 magnitude would not normally cause significant damage but thousands of buildings sustained damage in last month's quake.
Atalay, responding to journalists questions over why one of the hotels had been given the all clear, said only preliminary, rather than definitive assessments on structural damage had been carried out on the building.
Some 22 aircraft were carrying rescue and medical teams to the region, AFAD said.
JAPANESE WOMAN RESCUED
Rescue workers pulled a Japanese woman to safety from the rubble of the Bayram Hotel almost six hours after the quake, but
a Japanese man succumbed to his injuries, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.
The woman, Miyuki Konnai, was part of a rescue and relief team sent to Van from Japan after the first quake. She was found injured but conscious and could be seen talking to her rescuers as she was carried to an ambulance.
Television footage showed panicked people running through the streets and ambulances rushing through the city with their sirens wailing. Medical staff treated one unconscious person lying on an ambulance stretcher.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been in the nearby town of Ercis at the time of the quake on Wednesday, visited the crisis coordination center in Van, Anatolian said. Ercis was the worst hit area in last month's quake.
Davutoglu said about 100 people were being treated for minor injuries in Van, broadcaster NTV reported.
Turkey is criss-crossed with seismic faultines and experiences small tremors nearly every day. Some 20,000 people were killed by two large earthquakes in western Turkey in 1999.
(Writing by Daren Butler and Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Matthew Jones)
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tQPUC9NAHg3weYoSFfHvW2bNZzo21LnHgI2lijU7BwiYU86492TcA7bVf7mKaP9ThcIoa3lfORp6cS6d_zplPNMw4IvVw4qSHbayRZgnY=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 14-Nov-2011
Share ] 